


Thirty-Ish Years Later

by Unknown



Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Antisemitism, Background information, Character Death, Character Study, Class Project, Future Fic, Historical Accuracy, Historical Figures, I'm so sorry, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jewish Character, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nazi Germany, Nazi!Hanschen, Pastor!Ernst, Where are they now?, era appropriate homophobia, gender theory, hitler mention, i just put so much effort into this and needed to share it, i wrote this for a project, my uni did spring awakening, opening ending, several actually, so much background info, that all gets explained though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 05:13:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unknown/pseuds/Unknown
Summary: “Ernst Robel?”Ernst turns, surprised that someone all the way out here in Berlin recognizes him. Until now, he had spent his life in the small village where he is a pastor. His eyes alight on the tall man, something stirring in the back of his memory. Those wide eyes, that mouth held tightly closed with the hint of a smirk lurking in a corner. He knows this face. He knows this man.It’s been more than thirty years.





	Thirty-Ish Years Later

**Author's Note:**

> So, my now-alma mater did Spring Awakening: The Musical and I played Ernst Robel. At the same time, I was in a German/Gender Studies in Lit. course and I had to read the original and German (I was a German minor) version of Frühlings Erwachen. I also had to do a creative project and I literally wrote fanfiction for the project. However! This was historically accurate fanfiction in which I had to demonstrate the theory of the times about gender and sexuality in Wilhelmine and Nazi Germany. I have some notes for you: 
> 
> \- The story is set in Berlin in September 4, 1939. This is the day after Great Britain and France officially declared war on Nazi Germany; so technically the onset of the second world war. There's some tension in the city because the Nazi's are finally being called on their bullshit.  
> \- Having a portrait (either a photograph of painted) of Hitler in Nazis' (whether an actual Nazi, a supporter, or a sympathizer - they're all the same shit anyway) was a trend during this time and leading up to it. I did not make that up.  
> \- Ernst Röhm is an actual historical figure. He was really good and close friends with Hitler (legit he called him Adolf or Aldy to his face and he was the only one who Hitler really allowed to pull shit like that). He was the leader of the Sturmabteilung - literally, the Storm Battalion, but in English they were known as the Browncoats cos of their uniforms. He was also very very gay, and Hitler knew this. It wasn't a problem for a while until Hitler started to fear die Sturmabteilung and the power they had. Hitler had Röhm killed in 1934 for a variety of reasons including being threat to the Party and being gay. The Party started cracking down hard on the gays after that.  
> \- There were gay men (pink triangles) in the concentration camps. Women were usually not branded with the label of lesbian, as that would imply they had sexuality and the Party was not about that. Instead, they were antisocials or political enemies or the Nazis got them for their religion.  
> \- It was common for people to get matched up in the Party by higher ups if they were unmarried. Being unmarried was considered suspicious and unpatriotic because the Nazis were all about breeding more Aryans and locking women up in the house where they 'belonged'. Due to this, gays and lesbians occasionally married each other and lived in the same building as their 'friend couples' so the real queer couples could still be together.  
> \- I’m basing their ages off the 1906 production date of the stage-show, not the 1891 date it was finished. They would have been 14/15, so add the 33 years to 1939. That’s 30-ish years! This is important because Hanschen has a line that goes: ‘When we look back on an afternoon like this, thirty years from now, it will seem indescribably nice.' Guess what? It's been 30-ish years and it's the onset of WWII. He was right. Ernst quotes him. Quote courtesy of Frank Wederkind.  
> \- Ernst mentions wanting to be a country pastor. Baby boy fulfilled his dream. Bless his lil gay ass. He is married to a girl who was just a character in our ensemble. I've removed the name we used for her because that director was the worst one I've ever worked with in my years of theatre and I wouldn't put it past her to find this somehow and sue me for her 'intellectual property'. What a nightmare.  
> \- Melchior was sent to that reformatory. Most of the boys there left with a ranking of military officer, so I plopped our boy right in there. There are many theories that boys in military reform schools like that were streamlined into what we now know as Nazis. The culture there was abhorrent: no talk about sexuality, feelings, health - just a whole lot of hegemonic masculinity that was toxic to the extreme and resulted in emotionally stunted and angry, repressed individuals who eventually gained power because their whole generation got fucked. Feel free to send me asks and I can send you so much info oh my god.  
> \- Bobby Mahler is literally just from the musical; at least, he gets mentioned in Bitch of Living by Hanschen; "Bobby Mahler he's the best. Looks so nasty in those khakis..." Poor Bobby! QUote courtesy of Duncan/Sheik. NOT MINE.  
> \- Georg Zirschnitz got head-cannoned as Jewish by the Jewish student playing him so I've continued that here. That being said, my dude didn't meet a good end.  
> \- There really were brothels in and out of death camps where they sent gay men to be 'fixed' by lesbians being used as prostitutes. If you want more info on that, lemme know, I can point you in the right direction.  
> \- Magnus HIrschfeld was the man who first got into some of the queer terms we use today. He had this whacked out theory of 'the third sex' which was homosexual men (wtf man), but he was also the first pioneer of gay rights, so to speak, so there's that. He was also gay. Lemme know if you're interested. 
> 
> Ok, read on. More notes at the end.

_Berlin: September 4, 1939_

“Ernst Robel?”

Ernst turns, surprised that someone all the way out here in Berlin recognizes him. Until now, he had spent his life in the small village where he is a pastor. His eyes alight on the tall man, something stirring in the back of his memory. Those wide eyes, that mouth held tightly closed with the hint of a smirk lurking in a corner. He knows this face. He knows this man.

It’s been more than thirty years.

“Hans Rilow!” Ernst blurts, the thought crashing into him and, along with it, a variety of emotions, some of which he still cannot make sense of. The two men rush to each other, possibly to embrace, but Ernst slows upon getting closer. Hanschen has a red armband emblazoned with a black and white swastika. “Hanschen,” he gasps, his voice soft.

“I’m hardly young enough to warrant the use of that name,” Hanschen says with a chuckle. He stands closer than he should in these times, closer than he should for a man who wears that armband. Ernst takes an uneasy step back. “What are you doing in Berlin?”

“A convention, for Lutheran pastors,” Ernst says. He is confused. Anything he feels he could have said to Hanschen dies in his throat at one look of that armband.

“Heil Hitler!” a man says as he walks by, eyes trained on Hanschen. He raises an arm, salutes. Hanschen returns the movement, a smile still on his face from seeing Ernst.

“Heil Hitler!” Hanschen says and Ernst visibly flinches from him. Hanschen frowns. “Ernst…?” He trails off. “Come, let’s have a coffee in my apartment. You must have time for that?”

Ernst does have time. He doesn’t return to the country for another day. But the man in front of him doesn’t match up with the boy in his mind, skin browned from working the vineyard in the sun, cheeks red from exertion, lips chapped from the heat…

"I wouldn’t want to impose…”

“Nonsense! I’m done for the day. If I’m needed, they’ll call my private home telephone.” He is still smiling, but there’s a desperate light in his eyes. Ernst feels temptation take him.

“A cup of coffee then,” he agrees, and Hanschen leads him on to a lush apartment suite in a quieter part of the city. If his Nazi affiliations had given Hanschen anything, then it’s this. The rooms are gorgeous and well-furnished, the air warm from the cold outside. But the spaces feel empty, somehow. A portrait of Hitler sits on the wall, crowded near faded photos of family, children…

“Is that us?” Ernst asks, walking forward and ignoring the all-seeing eyes of the Führer. An old photograph, faint in black, white, and sepia tones, is carefully framed behind glass, protected from the elements. There they are, all lined up for a school photo outside the schoolhouse, Hanschen’s arm thrown seemingly careless around Ernst’s shoulders, pressed together down the line of their bodies. Even Moritz is there. Something aches dimly as he looks at their young, innocent faces. They knew so little then. But then, what do they know now? Ernst sighs and turns towards his friend. “Hans -” he starts but gets cut off when Hanschen’s arms wrap around his torso and pull him close, a hand cradling the back of his head. “Hans?”

Hanschen pulls away just as soon and smiles as though he has done nothing out of the ordinary. “I’ll put the water on to boil, then.” He walks away and leaves Ernst alone in a room, being watched by ghosts.

* * *

 “How have you been? How goes the pious life?” Hanschen asks, once they are seated on a plush, low couch, two cups of coffee steaming on the coffee-table in front of them. Ernst hesitates, but he can talk about this.

“It goes well. My soul, for the most part, has found peace. Though…”

“You are married, I assume?” Hanschen asks, plowing on. He gestures to the gold ring on Ernst’s right hand. Now, Ernst stops. He knows of the laws and social agendas the Party has passed. Aryan purity. The new infant-Nazi generation. Heterosexual couplings. Required marriage. It hurts, that Hanschen works for these ideals while having preached something much different in his youth. But for the comfort Ernst sees around him, for the security he knows Hanschen must have by virtue of his position in the Party, Ernst knows it makes sense. Hanschen always did like to play the system.

“Yes,” Ernst responds. He reaches for his coffee, sips.

“You’re happy?” Hanschen continues.

“Content,” Ernst answers. He sips some more, eyes averted.

“You’re uncomfortable,” Hanschen says, continuing as though he hasn’t said something shocking.

“I -” Ernst stops, coffee cup halfway to his mouth. His eyes flick to the side, to his… _friend._

“I shouldn’t have embraced you,” Hanschen says, coffee cup set on his knee, his whole body rigid.

“Hans,” Ernst starts.

“What’s wrong? What have I done?”

“What have you-” Ernst stops and chuckles in disbelief. “You’ve been honest with me, I’ll be honest with you.” He chooses his words carefully and says them slowly. “I don’t believe in the Party. I don’t believe in their - their _values_ or ideals. Their _goals_. But you… I believe in you. Or at least I did. In the image I had of you, in my mind.” He sips his coffee, but he doesn’t look at Hanschen. “Don’t you see the similarities to how we were raised? The lack of information given, the pressing of values that many have no stake in, the insistence of blind obedience?” He shakes his head, finally looks up, but does not look in Hanschen’s direction. He focuses on the picture of schoolboys on the wall from a time that feels so far away now. “The random extermination of those the Party finds… unsuitable. With no solid definition of what _unsuitable_ is.” Ernst looks into his coffee, pushes the words past the lump in his throat. “The same principles that led to a world without Moritz Stiefel and Wendla Bergman. And you support them.” He rubs his eyes. “You know, if we had done now what we had done as children, we’d be carted off with our Jewish brothers and sisters without so much as a bat of a lash. And you _support_ them.”

There’s a ragged breath that doesn’t come from him, and Ernst looks up.

“Ernst Röhm,” Hanschen says and Ernst blinks at him in surprise at hearing his own name paired with a foreign surname. Hanschen’s face is pink, eyes shiny, forehead wrinkled in grief. He doesn’t look at Ernst. “A year after the Führer took power, they killed Röhm. I was already working for the Party - you know I take an opportunity to rise when I see one. He was an officer, he headed _unsere Sturmabteilung_.” He pauses. “He loved men. Maybe me, I don’t know. We didn’t see each other much. But when we did…” He looks at Ernst, eyes suddenly old and tired. The effect is chilling. “I felt safe. He was close with the Führer - called him Adi, even. But they killed him. He was a threat and he was wrong, no matter how much he had done for the Party, and they killed him.”

Ernst puts his cup of coffee down and extends a shaking hand. He places it on Hanschen’s knee and squeezes, gently. All this time, he had assumed Hanschen was blindly following, when now, it was more for survival than anything else.

“I think some part of me knew they would come after us. After they took down Hirschfeld, I joined the Party. Then they killed Röhm. And when I saw it, in our office papers before it hit the newspapers… All I saw was _Ernst R-_ And I saw you, in my mind, lying dead with a bullet in your head-”

“Enough!” Ernst snaps.

“- and I’ve been carrying that with me for the past five years, wondering if you had made it, if they had caught you with someone else. Heaven knows I was with plenty of people until ’34. And Röhm, he looked like you a bit. That’s what did it for me. And I..”

“ _Hanschen_.”

“I almost lost my mind. Fancy that.” A whisper.

There is silence, and their coffee grows cold. Ernst cannot look away from Hanschen. His wedding band gleams in the low light of the room, the setting sun coming from a crack in the curtains. He looks at Hanschen’s hands, seeing no shimmer of gold, and he has to ask.

“You’re unmarried?” Didn’t the Party pride themselves on leading by example? Regardless of Hanschen’s true feelings about their ideals, Ernst knows the man is smart enough to follow their rules to prolong his safety.

“I’m too old. Röhm was the last lover I took, and after that…” He stops. “Technically, I work under Goebbels.” Ernst swallows hard, struggles not to cast judgement. “Mostly just a paper-pusher, you understand?” But there is guilt in Hanschen’s voice; he knows he is doing wrong. “Goebbels tried to match me with a young women in ’36. She was almost two decades my junior. I was able to argue that it would be indecent and unfair to pair a young, Aryan woman with many prospective, _younger_ male suitors with me. Think of the problems I could cause with her bearing children, I said. I could give the rest of my natural life to the Party, I told him. He saw and accepted the logic, and no one questions a 50 year old man. I’m too old to be ascribed any overt sexuality, I think.”

“You’re 48, Hans,” Ernst says with a small smile. He himself was just a year younger. “And I don’t know anyone who would look at you and _not_ see some kind of sexual appeal.” Ernst feels a blush creep up the back of his neck. Decades as a pastor in a sleepy _Dorf_ hadn’t helped his tame and tentative understanding of human desires. All he has is his experience, and that experience had started and ended with the man sitting beside him.

Hanschen turns a smile on him, and says, “You’ve aged but you haven’t changed. Not too much. Not really. You’re still that boy in the meadow, somewhere past your pastor’s clothes and sermons.” Hanschen sits up, moves to sit closer to him, and Ernst feels the late spring sun from decades ago, about to turn into summer, two young boys exhausted after working. The grey in Hanschen’s hair melts away, the lines on his face disappear, and they are young again. There is no Party, no hordes of men like them being dragged away regardless of religion or belief. Just them, in the sun, pleasantly exhausted, and together in the moment with nothing between them. Later on, not even clothes. Ernst feels blood rush to his cheeks at that.

“You were right, you know,” Ernst says, remembering - never able to forget, really - all the things that Hanschen told him. But this, of everything, stands out in his memory.

“I won’t disagree, because you’re probably right. But what about?” Hanschen says, that sly smirk on his face so similar to the one that once lived on a younger face.

"When we were children, on _that_ day, you said to me, ‘When we look back on an afternoon like this, thirty years from now, it will seem indescribably nice.’” Ernst stops, laughs softly as he wipes a tear from his cheek. His emotions always did get the better of him. “Well, here we are. And it does feel like that time was indescribably nice, in comparison to the heartache of now.”

Ernst wants to be surprised that Hanschen is wiping away his tears with gentle hands, but he knows that regardless of the aloofness of the times, Hanschen has always had a tender spot for him. It seems that thirty-ish years later makes no difference. He wonders what that means, for them.

“Let’s not be sad,” Hanschen whispers, an echo of the past. He presses a kiss to Ernst’s forehead and leaves his lips pressed against Ernst’s skin. “Let’s not be sad. Being sad never did any of us any good,” Hanschen murmurs against him.

“That it did not,” Ernst agrees. He soaks in the comfort for a moment, allowing himself to lean into the other man’s embrace, then pulls back, wiping at his face. “Speaking of, do you know what happened to anyone else?” Their class, he means, and Hanschen nods. Of course, working higher up with the Party, he would have more time and resources to stay in touch or inquire after the others.

“Melchior became an officer after his time in the reformatory. He died in the Great War, at the end in 1918.” Ernst feels his heart twinge at that. “Last I heard of Georg Zirschnitz, they took him and his family to Dachau.” Ernst had wondered, had held onto some sort of hope. He and Georg had had interesting conversations about religion, the latter a rabbi and the former a pastor. “I’m not sure about Otto Lammermeier. Or Bobby Mahler, and the rest of them.”

“The girls? Ilse Neumann, Martha Bessel… any of them?” Anyone who had been close to Wendla, he wants to say, but these days, he can barely force those old, dead names past his lips. To him, Wendla and Mortiz will forever be stuck as children in his mind, violently ripped away from their lives. For every child Ernst hears about, taken from communities, sent to camps or killed in raids, he pictures his childhood-friends’ faces in place of anonymous ones, and it spurs him with so much love, devastation, and guilt that he can hardly make it to his sermons some mornings.

Hanschen shakes his head, a hand slipping into Ernst’s, like the habit never really went extinct. “No. Maybe Ilse… but it could have been another woman. There are… _brothels_ , you see. Some in the camps, some outside of them. They send homosexual men to them so that the woman can… _correct_ them.” His words are so cold, so carefully chosen. Ernst thinks it must be exhausting to live in that way, to constantly check oneself around one’s superiors, lest one says something that may land one in the very predicament being spoken of.

“Oh,” Ernst says, squeezing the hand in his.

“And you? Do you know where anyone is now? Thea, or the small quiet one…” Hanschen snaps his fingers in thought, looking for a name Ernst already has on his tongue. 

“Thea is married and still in the village. And the small, quiet one…” Ernst feels his face heat again. “Actually, I married her.” Hanschen’s head snaps up in surprise. There is no anger or hurt in his eyes. If anything, Ernst swears he sees mirth, humor. “It is… a very _tame_ marriage. As the Lord dictates.”

“No children, I presume?” Hanschen teases.

“Goodness no,” Ernst exclaims with a shudder. “It’s not expected of us, with my being a pastor. If anything, I would describe our marriage as… a close friendship.”

"Is that not what all marriages should be like?” Hanschen asks, confusion coloring his voice.

“Maybe, once,” Ernst admits, looking at their hands. “I don’t think any of that matters much now.” They sit quietly as the world goes dark outside. They never move apart or release their grips on each other’s hands. Ernst knows it is late, that he has a room in an inn in the lower district. But he doesn’t move. “I should leave,” he says instead, while making no move to do so.

“No one lives around me,” Hanschen says, the words barely out of Ernst’s mouth.

“Hans…”

“I don’t mean… we don’t have to _do_ anything, I wouldn’t ask that of you. But having you here… it is a comfort, to me.” He squeezes Ernst’s hand. “ _You_ comfort me.”

Ernst has been married since he was twenty-three. His wife is a wonderful pastor’s wife. She brings food and clothes to the poorer families in the village, she keeps their dwelling clean and cooks, and helps him care for the state of the church. Over the years, they have become close, as two friends might when living in close quarters throughout their university studies. He trusts her, confides in her, is content with her. But she does not bring him even close-to-the-same modicum of comfort that merely sitting by Hanschen does, their hands pressed together. And in a time when one has no idea who could be taken next, Ernst needs all the genuine comfort he can get.

“You comfort me, too,” Ernst replies, and it is enough of an answer that Hanschen is not surprised when he takes off his coat and hangs it up under the portrait of Hitler. Hanschen notices the look of distaste and mimics it.

“A precaution, I’m afraid. No one will take it at face-value if you merely say you support the Party. Having a photo or painting is all the rage, anyhow,” Hanschen says, taking Ernst by the hand and leading him into his room. Always leading, Ernst thinks. And Ernst had always been happy and eager to follow. Now is no different.

 _This is easier_ , Ernst thinks as he strips from his day clothes and slips on a long night-shirt that Hanschen lets him borrow to sleep in. _This feels natural_ , Ernst thinks as he climbs under the covers with his friend and presses to his side, listening to them breathe in the dark. There are no windows to the outside world in the bedroom, and Ernst wonders if Hanschen did that purposefully. Just in case, so no one could see him or anyone else he found prudent to bring into his room.

For a moment, Ernst can pretend that this is what he falls asleep to every night and wakes up to every morning. There is no parish waiting for him miles away from Berlin, no wife tidying their meager space and assisting all those in need. There is no war brewing, no declarations of war from Great Britain and France like he heard the night before. He doesn’t have to think of the Jewish families being taken from his village and the silence in their place. There is only Hanschen breathing slowly next to him, smelling like sweat and soap, arms around Ernst and always, always stronger than him. There is the softness of the bed they lay in together, breaking the laws of God and man all at once, though all they do is press together and look for gentle comfort.

For a moment, _this moment_ , Ernst can pretend and sleep in a distant peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional notes about why I chose to write this in This Way: 
> 
> First, I'm not defending the actions of my version of Hanschen. He's a Nazi, regardless of his reasons why. However, the reality is that there were a lot of people that did what he did and they are still responsible. I'm also not defending Ernst, because he also didn't help. As a religious person, I think it's important that the Christian faiths realize they were absolute trash during the World Wars (and huh maybe even still) and that we need to learn from those experiences and BE BETTER. Jesus must be so embarrassed of us right now, like holy shit.
> 
> I also wanted to set the tension between these two men at the start. Hans(chen) as a Nazis and Ernst as a disapproving pastor (much like Lilly’s parents were in Aimee und Jaguar – Färberböck, 1999; I recommend the film. It's a toughie about lesbians during WWII where one is a Nazi and the other is Jewish, but... it's got some interesting, legit stuff in it about gender and sexuality of the time) due to his religious teachings of tolerance was an apt way to do this. I also wanted Ernst, who I assume has a more formal and moral education due to his religious profession, to make parallels between their upbringing and the tragedies of their youth, with the horrors in their government. These are two men on opposite sides of moral grounds brought together by the similar past they share (homosexuality) that is disapproved of by both sides (religion and Nazism). 
> 
> I didn’t want either man to be able to say he stands on a higher moral ground now than the other. Hanschen has joined the Nazi party and in some ways is just as complicit in their atrocities (like an Eichmann - look into Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem - , especially when he tries at some point to lessen his role). Ernst, on the other hand, is part of a religious group that didn’t help the Jewish community – a community that believed in many of the same aspects of God that Protestants and Catholics alike believed in. I reference many of the times that Ernst saw friends being taken, that he even was in contact with one of the young Jewish men from their schoolboy days and still didn’t realize what had happened to him. Ernst is representative of those who did nothing while the carnage was going on, regardless if they believed there was no point in helping as they could not make a difference, or if they just found it too dangerous and were aiming for self-preservation.
> 
> Also:  
> Why is Hanschen a Nazi? Y'all please read Frühlings Erwachen if you haven't and look into his lines in the 2006 musical, and please tell me that boy wouldn't be ready for a dog-eat-dog world as long as he got to "skim off the cream" (Wedekind, 69). 
> 
> I'm sorry, I just am so bitter that I had to confess my fake-love to fake-him every night and he always nailed the, 'And so you should' line while i looked at the audience like I was in The Office, sighed, tried not to cry (acting of course) and broke out into heartbreaking song. WHO SAYS THAT AFTER THIS BOY YOU'VE BEEN BUILDING THE GAY WITH IN THE BG CONFESSES HIS LOVE FOR YOU? also we did an amazing job layering on the gay; I was the only queer one, so I nudged him where he needed to be. And man. That boy couldn't kiss for shit. /end rant
> 
> Finally, I do believe that in both the stage-play and the musical, there was genuine love and affection between the boys, even if it wasn't some epic love that we think is necessary today. I think they were each others' first loves (yes, even Hanschen - which for those that wonder why I called him Hans, Hanschen is the diminutive - actually, it's Hänschen, but the musical doesn't have the umlaut and the stage-play turned it into... Hansy which mortified me so I don't talk about it). 
> 
> Dorf means town/village in German. Germans (as well as a lot of eastern eurpopean and asian countries), wear the wedding band, etc. on the right hand, not the left.
> 
> Hanschen also says the, "Let's not be sad" line in the stage-play, so that's not mine either. Don't sue me or anything, Wedekind's ghost (Wedekind was also a misogynistic dick, hit me up if you wanna discuss). 
> 
> Ok, thanks for reading. If you actually read all my notes, bless. And if anyone is wondering, I got an A on this and aced my class. There's an explanation/review I had to do of myself, so if anyone wants to see that, lemme know, I gotchoo.


End file.
